DAC 3 Precious Dragon (7 page)

The temple was exactly the same: a huge block of metal and black stone. Its iron doors were firmly closed. One side led onto the road that was Shaopeng in Pin's own world; behind the temple, lay a reach of the canal. As they passed over it, heading for the slums of Saro Town, Pin caught the unmistakable odor of blood. The demon landed and ran, a hobbling flight, pausing only when she reached the shelter of a nearby alleyway. Then, she stopped and looked up. Nothing was following them. The demon's chest hurt, Pin noticed. She took a deep breath, drawing the filthy air into her lungs; a clawed hand faltered to her throat. She opened her mouth and hissed with exhaustion. Pin hoped fervently that she wasn't about to have a heart attack, or whatever passed for one in demonkind; there was a possibility that her demise might free him, but he had no desire either to be free in Hell or trapped in the corpse of one of its denizens. His paranoia was not, however, justified. The demon had merely stopped to draw breath, and soon she was striding purposefully down the alleyway.

Above, the storm clouds of Hell raced overhead, revealing tatters of crimson sky. Peering through the demon's eyes, Pin could see the characters of a remedy sign appearing out of the shadows, and there was the remedy shop itself: parchment walls upon a wooden frame. The demon stumbled through the door. Inside, it was hot and quiet. The remedy man was sitting at a table, eating a plate of something that Pin could not immediately identify. On the demon's sudden entrance, he looked up. He had bright, little eyes.

"Well," he said, dabbing at his lipless mouth with a napkin. "This is a surprise. To what do I owe the honor of your company, madam?" He craned his neck, trying to look past the demon. "No retainers, I see. Clearly, you are in want of discretion."

"Ghost," the demon whispered. "I need your help."

"What seems to be the problem?" asked the remedy man.

"Possession."

The remedy man gave her a beady look.

"Pardon me?"

"I am possessed," the demon said, with dignity, "by a mediocre human spirit."

The remedy man stared for a moment, then began to shake with laughter.

"Well," he said at last, patting his eyes with the napkin. "What a novelty. And how ironic. Can dish it out, but can't take it, eh? Oh no—" for the demon had taken a menacing step forward. "You can't touch me. You're not one of the Great Powers even if you are an aristocrat, and I have my rights, you know. I suppose you want an exorcism?"

"Obviously."

"Well, I don't know about that . . ." the remedy man said. Rising, he added, "Bend your head."

Obediently, the demon did so. Pin could see the remedy man looking in at him with eyes that were like two small, red sparks.

"Hmm. Tongue."

Obligingly, the demon unscrolled the organ in question, which reached almost to the floor.

"I don't like the look of that . . . All right. Sit down. I need to know a few things."

The remedy man proceeded to ask the demon a great many questions, concerning her diet, her habits, and her health in general. The demon's answers were illuminating if unpleasant, particularly over the matter of diet.

"Well," the remedy man said at last. "Let's see what we can do."

He put the suffering demon through a rapid and diverse range of treatment. Needles were placed beneath her eyelids, and herbs beneath her tongue. Small cups of smoldering incense were balanced on the pressure points of her sinewy wrists. Trapped inside, listening to the supernaturally slow beat of her demonic heart, Pin grew uncomfortable but remained intact. Eventually, the remedy man said, "I don't think there's anything more I can do. Sorry. You'll have to try the Ministry of Epidemics. Good thing they're up and running again, isn't it?"

"No!" the demon wailed. "You have to help me!"

But the remedy man clapped his hands and the walls of the shop began to disappear. The books, instruments, and furniture whirled up into the storm, and the remedy man himself transformed into a boneless batlike thing and soared away. Above, among the storm clouds, was an eye, red as a coal and scanning the city below.

Will you do it for me, Mother?" Mai's voice was strained and distant on the other end of the line.

"Of course, of course, don't worry," Mrs Pa told her. She paused. She could hear Mai listening, far away. "Mai?"

"Mother?"

"Can you tell me one thing?"

"Yes?"

"This . . .you didn't get married because of this, did you, Mai?"

With relief she heard Mai laugh.

"No, of course not. I love Ahn, Mother, you know that. Things are a little different here. They work in another way."

"I know that," Mrs Pa said, although she did not understand. Even in Hell, how could you get married one week, without being pregnant, and have a baby the next? Of course, it would be lovely to be a grandmother, but she needed a little more time to get used to the idea, that was all. She hadn't made any baby clothes. "Just tell me what I have to do."

Mai explained. At last Mrs Pa put the phone down, and went to the door of the shack. It was midmorning, and the light poured over the roofs of go-downs and houses alike, transforming the metal into thick silver layers. To the west, the pale brilliance of the sky betrayed the sea, light reflected from water. It was a bright summer day; the air warm and humid from the night's rain, and scented with the pungent herbs that Mrs Pa grew in her tiny square of backyard. Despite the mild morning, Mrs Pa shivered. She went back inside and collected together two of the smaller bagua mirrors and a charm, turning on a thread, which depicted the calm figure of Kuan Yin. She was the only one of all the gods whom Mrs Pa really trusted.

She hung the mirrors above the door, and suspended the charm between them, fixing it on its nail so that the goddess' compassionate gaze was turned outward and nothing could sneak in behind her back. More mirrors went on the back door, so that anything approaching would see its own ugly face and run screaming. She also attached a bunch of herbs above the stove and over the lavatory, just in case. Then she bent to light the spire of incense that sat in the door shrine. These precautions, against human and supernatural, having been taken, Mrs Pa brewed the blend of herbs that her dead daughter had carefully listed, drank the resultant mess, and lay down on the bed.

She dreamed that she was standing on the steps of the temple of Sulai-Ba, in front of the towering iron doors. The angles were somehow distressing to the human eye. How to get in? Mrs Pa wondered, dreaming. One by one, she climbed the steps, pausing to rest only when she reached the top. She looked down. The street seemed a very long way away, which was curious, because the flight of steps was not long. The people below resembled ants, in some trick of perspective.

Mrs Pa went over to the vast doors and put her hands upon them. The metal was cold to the touch, bitterly so, and rough. Tentatively, and feeling foolish, Mrs Pa knocked. Nothing happened. She stepped back and gazed around the arching doorway, and as she did so she noticed a smaller door, off to the left, sandwiched between the columns of the portal and the edge of the doorway itself. This door was ajar. How stupid of me, Mrs Pa thought. Her hands were balled into fists in her pockets. Even in the dream, the thought occurred to her: When I was a young woman, I wouldn't have had the nerve to do this. This was what suffering and loss did, in the end: it gave you a strength you never knew you had. Thinking of her daughter, she stepped into the temple.

Inside, Sulai-Ba was airy and quiet. There was a strong saline smell, the smell of the sea marshes along the delta, and a familiar undernote which Mrs Pa had trouble identifying. Then she realized that it reminded her of the meat market on the pier: the same salty, bloody reek. Familiarity gave her courage. She was standing between two enormous columns which ascended into the cavernous roof. Before her, were a series of connected pools: the cistern reservoirs. The dark water lapped gently against the stone. Mrs Pa walked round the cistern into the adjoining hall, and stopped short with a gasp.

In the middle of the hall, sprawled across the stone floor, lay a carcass. It was almost bare of flesh: the ribcage arched white and ghostly in the half-light, tapering off into the knobbly vertebrae, and the long skull, with its large eye sockets and sharp hunter's teeth, lay patiently on the floor, like a dog resting its head on the carpet. What was it? A dragon, surely. It could be nothing else.

Within the skeleton, something moved. Mrs Pa, thinking resolutely of all the times she had visited the meat market, walked toward it. She came round the end of the carcass to where the pointed bones of the tail snaked over the floor. From this angle, she was able to see into the ribcage. A solemn pair of eyes regarded her. Mrs Pa drew a sharp breath.

The child was so much like Mai at that age: the same serious eyes under the same thatch of black hair. Mrs Pa swallowed. The child's cheek bulged outward; he was sucking on something. He tucked it into his mouth and said, "Grandmother?" He got to his feet and toddled forward, ducking his head even though the bones arced high above him. Mrs Pa crouched, with difficulty, so as to be on the same level.

"Your mother told me where to find you," she said. Her voice sounded old and thin, quavery, and she spat into her handkerchief to clear her throat. "She didn't tell me your name." She tried hard not to sound accusing.

"I haven't got one yet. This one—" he gestured toward the bones "—died, but it did not leave me a name. Maybe you could give me one?" He was very articulate for his age, Mrs Pa considered . . . How old was he, this strange spirit child? She thought hard. She supposed she ought to give him his father's name, but it sounded too prosaic, somehow. Then, in her mind, she saw the boat that had brought Mai and Ahn to their wedding, sailing out of the salt darkness with its crimson sails hanging in wind-blown tatters.

"Precious Dragon!" she said. This produced an alarmingly big smile. "Do you like that name? All right, Grandson. Precious Dragon it is, then." She was conscious of a sudden, inexplicable relief. "Shall we go home?" The little boy nodded, and stepped forward to take her hand. He was nicely dressed, she noticed, in a puffy cotton jacket and trousers. His hand was reassuringly warm. "Come on, now."

Quickly, she took him out through the little door, closing it behind them. Outside on the steps of Sulai-Ba, the sunlight seemed to blaze, brightness consuming the air after the shadowy silence of the temple. The world seemed suddenly hot and real. Mrs Pa blinked. She looked down at the child, who smiled.

"Am I still dreaming?" she asked, unsure.

"No. You never were dreaming. The spell brought you to Sulai-Ba. You're really here."

"This is real?" Suddenly she was trembling and afraid. Reassuringly, Precious Dragon took hold of her hand.

"It's all right," he said.

Holding her grandson's hand firmly, and not knowing what else to do, Mrs Pa led him down the steps to the busy street.

There had been yet another road collapse, this time in Semmerang Anka, and none of the downtown trams to Ghenret were running. The emergency services, already overstretched in the area, were slow to react and even slower to clear the debris from the street. The collapse had brought down part of the Second National Bank, sending showers of supposedly shatterproof flexiglass into the street and severing the downtown cables. Three people were dead, a mercifully small toll this time. The collapse of the Feng Shui Practitioners' Guild had left a legacy of infrastructural problems. Mrs Pa and Precious Dragon watched the emergency services as they made their impeded way toward the Anka. The carriers bore the bagua symbol of the Tu Chin Trade Company; presumably the services were on private hire to the overstretched National Bank.

Wisely, Mrs Pa decided to take her new grandson to lunch and avoid the crush, but when they finally found a café whose apparent hygiene was satisfactory to Mrs Pa, they discovered that a great many other people had the same idea. Still, there was no hurry. Precious Dragon waited patiently in the queue with his grandmother. He was a very well-mannered little boy, she was pleased to see. When at last they were able to sit down, she ordered soup and noodles and bought him a fortune cookie; she had not done this for a long time. When the cookie was opened, it revealed a blank slip of paper.

"Oh, what a shame," she exclaimed in disappointment, but Precious Dragon seemed quite pleased.

"It means that anything can happen," he explained kindly. For a moment he looked completely unlike a small boy.

"I suppose anything can," his grandmother said, slowly. She found that she was enjoying herself. It was a long time since she had had a child to spoil, or had eaten out at lunchtime. She smiled at her strange descendent, sitting opposite, and he beamed back. The sweet, or whatever it had been in his mouth, was not in evidence. He was smothering his noodles with extra-hot chili garlic sauce. Mrs Pa regarded him with some alarm.

"Are you quite sure you'll like that?" she asked, doubtfully. Precious Dragon nodded, with utmost conviction.

After lunch they wandered back out along Battery Road, turning up Step Street. From the top of the steps, you could see the harbor and the long, uneven shore of Teveraya, so brilliantly illuminated at night but now almost concealed by a light mist. The sea brought all sorts of weather, for here in the heart of the city the sun was blindingly bright. They stood at the end of the steps and watched a ponderous tanker crossing the harbor.

"Are there boats where you live?" Precious Dragon asked.

"Lots, in the harbor near me, and people live on them, too. They have chickens, and cats, all sorts of animals."

"When will we get there?" her grandson said, fidgeting.

"Soon." The tram rattled past the foot of Step Street, so the service must be running again. With relief, Mrs Pa took her grandson to wait at the nearest platform. Her feet were beginning to hurt, and her joints felt stiff with rheumatism. They had to wait a long time for the downtown, and Mrs Pa, sitting on the platform bench, nearly dozed off. She came to with a start and discovered, with a terrible sinking sensation that she had not experienced for twenty years, that Precious Dragon was not by her side. Frantically looking around, she spotted him peering in through a shop window. She almost boxed his ears in relief, but as she hastened toward him he turned and looked up at her, and for a moment she felt dizzy. She could no more box his ears, she realized, than she could box those of Elder Ko of the local temple. She almost apologized, but found herself saying, "What are you looking at, Precious Dragon?"